Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact of corporatecontrol on households' choice on consumption-savings and, as a result,on financial capital accumulation. It attempts to provide an alternativeto the managerialist and neoclassical 'orthodoxies' in theory(Part I) and subjects the alternative theories to empirical-econometrictesting (Part II). The central theme of the thesis runs as follows.The emergence and growth of the joint-stock company has led to thesocialization of the 'ownership' of the means of production. Thelatter has resulted in the generation of a higher level of aggregatesaving being available for investment purposes, than could I-lave beenthe case in its absence. A preference on the part of the corporate'controlling group' for higher retention and net inflow to the corporatepension funds ratios than that of the non-controlling shareholders andthe latters' inability and/or unwillingness to substitute for increasesin corporate savings by sufficiently reducing their net personal savings,has facilitated the achievement of this result. Historical consistencyand the existing evidence suggests that it is more plausible to interpretthe above as the result of capitalist control of today's corporations,rather than managerial and/or all shareholders' control. Increases incorporate saving and less than perfect substitution between corporateand personal saving will tend to reduce the part of private incomedevoted to consumption: thus containing the seeds of a realizationfailure. The Saving Function should be extended to allow for thesedevelopments: a proposed 'Monopoly Capitalism Saving Function' appears,closer to describing saving behaviour today. The post-war U.K.evidence does not contradict the above propositions. Our econometricevidence lends support to our proposed form of the saving function, theidea that different forms of saving substitute imperfectly and the otherhypotheses advanced in the thesis.